Editorial: Protecting N.Y.: No easy solution

Nov. 13, 2012

Debris, including boats from nearby marinas, fill the street on Piermont Avenue in Piermont Tuesday as residents and businesses continue to clean up from Superstorm Sandy. / Ricky Flores/The Journal News

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| A Journal News editorial

Rye Playland was turned into base camp for 815 utility workers who came from Texas to Quebec to help repair damage done by Superstorm Sandy. / Ricky Flores/The Journal News

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It isn’t too soon to wonder who will intervene first to save New York from the further ravages of hurricanes and nor’easters — the tea party-conflicted, cliff-diving Congress, under-appreciated land-use planners and building-code czars, or maybe a cabal of cash-bearing fairies. We can only guess in the aftermath of Sandy.

New York officials — none with nearly as much wallet as will — are looking to replace, repair and, in an optimal world, guard against future replays of Sandy-style disaster. They all begin with the proposition, a safe one, that a warming planet begets rising sea levels, more frequent and violent storms, more opportunities for flooding and related havoc. The officials also express scorn, anger and utter frustration with energy providers. (Who else could share possible blame for leaving so many without power in the densely populated, flood-prone region of dubious, vulnerable and aged infrastructure?) Bright ideas abound for preventing future catastrophe; the harder challenge is paying for those fixes.

Count New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in the camp reserved for optimists. In a major policy address Tuesday, mayoral candidate Quinn outlined a series of flood-prevention measures aimed at addressing the “single most important infrastructure challenge of our time.” Ideas include the possibility of constructing a massive storm surge barrier to protect the city, its people and riches.

She suggested another $4 billion in preventative measures, with Congress — the same one now weighing the relative merits of falling over a fiscal cliff of massive tax increases and spending cuts — paying the major portion of total costs. Con Ed, she added, would be on the hook for burying power lines underground and protecting substations — “we will not tolerate” ratepayers being stuck with the bill; but Washington would have to dig deep for the rest. “We need the federal government to invest in New York’s citizens, to help us build New York safer than before,” said Quinn, in an account in The Wall Street Journal online.

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But Quinn, to her credit, suggested some measures not dependent upon Washington’s intervention: stricter building code regulations to protect heating and electrical systems; and upgrades of wastewater and stormwater facilities. New Yorkers — all of us depend upon a dry and functioning city — are likelier to see those fixes before Washington steps in to alter the force of nature.

For his part, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has requested $30 billion in federal help to rebuild after Sandy, including funding to repair bridges, tunnels and mass transit lines, and to rebuild homes and apartments. He also wants to fund improvements to the power grid, upgrade New York City’s oil supply lines, and study what additional measures can be taken to better protect low-lying areas from flooding. He, too, has drawn a bead on the utility companies, announcing Tuesday he will form a powerful commission to investigate the companies’ response to Sandy and other major storms in the past two years. Shouldn’t the inquiry include a broad examination of relevant public policy, including infrastructure and land use?

Quinn said that “the time for casual debate is over” and that it was “crystal clear that we need to build protective structures” to gird against future flooding. But there is hardly uniformity of opinion on necessary next steps, what works, how other communities would be affected, or how preventative measures might actually be paid for. At once, Congress, with good reason, is becoming more resistant to paying again and again to repair and replace in areas given to serial flooding.

What everyone agrees upon is this: New York cannot stand pat on big solutions — while it awaits riches from Washington, or other improbable sources. We like this advice, from water policy analyst Ben Chou, writing for the Natural Resources Defense Council staff blog: “Ultimately, there is not likely a silver bullet for protecting our coastal cities from storm surge and flooding. As the levee failures in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, the perils of relying too heavily on a single solution can be catastrophic. Instead, it will take a variety of strategies and serious, thoughtful discussion about the solutions to better protect people and communities from extreme weather.”